2011-02-18 - Be One

Part 4

Be One

Back in verse 21 he asks God "that they all may be
one". Verse 23 tells us that the way to perfection is thorough being
one. We become perfect through being one. Being one is important to him.
In fact Jesus pleads with the Father four times about this matter - once
in verse 11, twice in verse 21, and again in verse 22. God made one man and
one woman - just one family of mankind. It is only our sin and ignorance
that divides us whether it's by skin color, nationality, or whatever. Even
us Christians aren't immune to our divisive ways but we should learn to be.
Because as Paul reminds us, "There is one body, and one
Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one
faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through
all, and in you all." (Ephesians 4:4-6 ) I wonder if he ever looks
down on us, those called by his name, and cries over our clubs, cliques,
and denominations - all the silly things we invent that are all about prideful
religions rather than personal relations. We divide ourselves in so many
ways and many are so trivial. When we do though be cause we are one body
it is like tearing an arm off Jesus himself. We ought to be one - we must
be one.

Be Love

Nearing the end of his prayer, Jesus prays "that the love
wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them" in verse 26. We are to
be love. What a glorious job he desires for us - he wants us to be his love.
He wants us to be His body - to be his hands and to be his feet to all we
encounter. We are to be His amazing love.

We can come to God, come to church, and come to pray; we can go to tell,
go to teach, and go to touch lives. We can come & go all we want but
if we cannot be love all our action is in vain. Listen how Eugene Peterson
beautifully paraphrases the opening verses of 1 Corinthians 13.
"If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but
don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God's
Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain
as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, 'Jump,' and it jumps,
but I don't love, I'm nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and
even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten
nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt
without love. " (I Corinthians 13:1-3 MSG) Mother Theresa once said,
"It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not
how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving."

It is a great blessing to be his love. Ephesians 3:19 says that in knowing
the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that we may be filled with all
the fullness of God. His desire is for us to be his love but his offer is
for us to be his fullness. Love enables fullness, completion, perfection.
In being love we become the others. There is no division in love only unity
so fully being love we become one. And in love we receive his fullness -
his perfection.